Canine Possibilities

As a dog owner, a former seeing-eye-dog puppy raiser, and general puppy enthusiast, I am considering going into the field of dog training. I don't want to just teach, "sit," or, "stay," I want to teach canines useful things, like operating light switches for disabled people in wheelchairs, or providing a young autistic child with social skills, and maybe giving a dyslexic kid the focus needed to learn. Well-trained dogs can be taught anything-- giving a hug when a PTSD or anxiety disorder patient is having an attack, guiding a blind person, aiding a deaf person, searching for and rescuing accident victims, sniffing out drugs in police investigations, attacking on command for police protection, and on and on.

But never once have I thought of teaching a dog something like this.



I can't be sure if all this is for real or just a hoax or what, but it's something to think about. It would be ridiculously fun to teach a dog how to drive a car-- and if we could do that, think of what else we could teach dogs to do...